Safety indefinitely suspended from football team

Baton Rouge police arrested LSU starting safety Jalen Mills early Wednesday after he allegedly punched a woman he had never met before, causing her to briefly lose consciousness in the hallway of his apartment complex on May 4.

Mills bailed out of jail at 3:40 p.m. Wednesday, a prison official said. His bond was set at $7,000 early Wednesday, but later was raised to $10,000.

Mills, a junior from DeSoto, Texas, is suspended indefinitely from the football team, Tigers coach Les Miles said Wednesday in a news release. Miles said he will make no further comments on the incident until it goes through the legal system.

Mills’ attorney, Brent Stockstill, said Wednesday afternoon that he had not yet spoken to his client, but he has serious issues with the “bare bones allegations” in the warrant.

“I think we will learn the information is the arrest warrant is not completely accurate,” Stockstill said.

He said he has information that someone else punched the victim, not Mills, and has witnesses to back up that claim.

According to the warrant, the woman, looking for a friend, knocked on Mills’ door at 1 a.m. Mills opened the door and then closed. She knocked again, but there was no answer.

The woman was walking away when she thought she heard someone say something, the warrant says.

She turned around and the 6-foot, 195-pound Mills punched the 5-foot-3, 113-pound woman once in the face, the warrant says. She needed four stitches to close a gash on her lip from the punch.

Cpl. Don Coppola, a Baton Rouge police spokesman, said the victim and Mills did not know each other before the incident. Police suspect the victim was either confused as to where she was in the complex or she may have been given the wrong apartment number, knocking on Mills’ door by mistake.

The warrant says a witness corroborated the victim’s story and both picked Mills out of a six-person photographic lineup. The warrant does not identify the victim or the witness.

When police called Mills on May 29 to talk about the allegations, the warrant says, he told the detectives he was in Houston and would not be back in Baton Rouge until summer school began on June 9.

Detectives made an appointment for 5 p.m. Tuesday for Mills to come in and talk about the incident, the warrant says, but Mills never showed up and never called to cancel or reschedule.

A detective called Mills and the call went to Mills’ voice mail, according to the warrant, which was issued Tuesday.

In his LSU career, Mills has started all 26 games and he ranked third on the roster last season with 67 tackles and three interceptions.

The freshman All-American was moved to safety late last season as LSU tried to season a pair of freshman cornerbacks.

He is on the Lott Trophy Watch list and is the secondary’s most experienced member. Yet he lost his starting job midway through the season, and there were some struggles in coverage against Georgia and Alabama.

Mills is the 10th LSU football player arrested since 2010, and the second in 2014, according to statistics compiled by The Advocate.

The most high-profile arrests during that span were Jeremy Hill on April 27, 2013, following an attack at Reggie’s in Tigerland, and Jordan Jefferson and Josh Johns on Aug. 26, 2011, stemming from a brawl at Shady’s Bar in Tigerland.

Hill was placed on probation in July after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of simple battery.

Jefferson pleaded no contest to simple battery, a misdemeanor, and was placed on probation. The grand jury did not indict Johns.